Hello everyone
I’m new to this group and I hope someone might be able to help me with a few pointers. My husband in his early 50s has previously & seemingly enjoyed good health until two weeks ago when he suffered a sudden and urgent onset of symptoms. These included a feeling that his left arm was being squeezed, pain in his legs, sudden loss of/blurred vision that came back within ten minutes, feeling sick, pain in his head when he coughed, radiating tightening in his shoulder up to his neck and around his chest, numbness in his face, tingling fingertips. He’s never ill and the symptoms were so sudden and strong that we called 111 who sent an ambulance. He doesn’t have a history of migraine (this man doesn’t even take two paracetamol if he has any pain) or anxiety but these are the two possible diagnosis offered by the ambulance service.
In the past two weeks the symptoms have been coming thick and fast, including bloating, pain in his lower, central pelvic area and some difficulty walking, the sensation that he was walking on bubble wrap and as though the bones in his feet were pushing through the soft tissue. He mowed the lawn yesterday and afterwards felt as though everything was swimming in his head. He spent 20 minutes on the static bike on Thursday and afterwards his genitals were left “buzzing” for ten mins or so afterwards. The symptoms have largely been ignored by medics with the exception of an out of hours doctor who, when my husband mentioned that his sibling has MS, referenced getting a referral to a neurologist. He’d bet £1 that it was more likely to be this. We mentioned this to our GP who was a bit cross with that suggestion. He did, however, make a referral to and my husband was seen at the TIA clinic today where they confirmed that there was no evidence of a stroke or TIA. We personally have never felt this to be TIA related (no FAST symptoms at the time of each episode and no nausea since the first few attacks) but still had to follow their process to rule this out. He came away today again with a ?Migraine diagnosis but this just doesn’t feel right to us and we are both becoming concerned.
I guess my question is, at what point do GPs consider MS as a diagnosis and support investigation? What has to happen before an investigation is started? My husband feels that he has had mild symptoms for years but ignored them as insignificant or just one offs that have exacerbated with age. Im not sure what to do next, what to try or where to go now. His GP record is so thin that it would likely slip between the crack between floorboards! Any advice welcome, thank you in advance.